From Egg to Duck
From Egg to Duck (Buon compleanno, Paperino! in the original Italian, which is more directly translated as the alternative, equally-unofficial English title Happy Birthday, Donald Duck!') is a comic story written and drawn by Marco Rota. It features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Daisy Duck, Elvira Duck. Della Duck is mentioned but remains offscreen. Description An Italian reporter doing a series on the world's greatest cities stops by Duckburg and bumps into Donald Duck and his nephews. Being a big fan of Donald's, he insists on getting Donald to tell his own version of his life story — which Donald does, from a romanticized version of his birth all the way to his first adventures with Huey, Dewey and Louie in the early 1950's! Continuity * Donald is shown to have spent most of his childhood as a turbulent youth on Grandma Duck's Farm, with Grandma Duck herself playing a large part in his education. This fact had already been featured in This Is Your Life, Donald Duck (1960) and The Good Old Daze (1964), and would continue to remain a staple of depictions of Donald's youth ever after. * The version of his youth told by Donald implies, however, that he was found as an infant by his uncle Scrooge and ‘aunt’ Elvira, who were at the time both unaware that the foundling was in fact related to them. His parents seem to have played no part in his education. This version of events would be heavily contradicted by The Empire-Builder from Calisota (1994), where it is shown that Donald was raised by his parents Hortense and Quackmore for the first few years of his life, only meeting Scrooge when he was already old enough to walk (and kick). Innumerable sources also disagree with the notion that Elvira is the sister of Scrooge and Donald's aunt, as opposed to his grandmother and not related to Scrooge by blood. * Donald briefly goes over Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck's arrival in his house, with a flashback to his getting Della Duck's letter in Donald's Nephews. He seems to conflate the events of the comic strip with the triplets' permanently coming to live with him, although Donald's Nephews actually featured Huey, Dewey and Louie going back home to their mother at the end of the strip-continuity; the actual circumstances that led to Huey, Dewey and Louie coming to live with Donald for good would only be shown thirty years later in Family Ties (2014). * Donald mentions that he did acting work in Hollywood during World War II, dressing up as a trooper in a series of war-propaganda films. This metafictionally references the real-life cartoon Donald Gets Drafted (1942) and its five “sequels”, confirming that, like many other Disney cartoons, they exist in-universe as films where Donald, Mickey & Co. starred as themselves. This idea had first been introduced in The Brave Little Tailor (1938). * In one of several contradictory accounts as to how and when he met her, Donald says he met Daisy when he bumped to her in the streets of Duckburg one day, not long after moving there. This Is Your Life, Donald Duck (1960) already conflicted with this notion, as it showed Donald and Daisy already dating as high-schoolers. * When recounting the first adventures of his adult life, Donald briefly recalls the events of Dangerous Disguise (1951), including an anecdote featuring him and Madame Triple-X not shown on-page in the 1951 story. * Donald claims his birth date is June the 9th, 1934 (the date of the real-life release of The Wise Little Hen). There are various stories which restate his birthday to be June the 9th, though the 1934 date on the other hand directly conflicts with the sheer fact that in The Wise Little Hen, Donald already looked to be a teenager at the least. Don Rosa would later introduce 1920 as Donald's birth year. Behind the scenes This story was created to be first printed in the 1984 Italian Happy Birthday Paperino #1, celebrating the character's 50th anniversary, though it appears to have been printed in other countries slightly earlier in that year. Though never officially printed in English, it is popularly known in the English fandom by the name of From Egg to Duck, and is well-known there thanks to a widely-circulated fanmade translation dating back to 2014. Category:Stories Category:Comic Stories Category:Marco Rota stories Category:1984 stories Category:Donald Duck stories Category:Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck stories Category:Scrooge McDuck stories Category:Daisy Duck stories Category:Grandma Duck stories Category:Della Duck stories